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Thursday, March 29, 2012

Zipfizz Energy Mix Review

Living in Houston, TX, we have some pretty high temperatures almost year round. It can easily be in the mid 80's during spring but when summer comes it's 80* before the sun even comes up.

Working out in those kinds of temperatures causes a lot of sweating!! During summer runs I am soaked within a few minutes. When the sweat dries there is a layer of salts on my face that you can see! It's white and flaky. Ick.

The problem is that I need electrolytes in my body. I need that potassium and sodium. So when training hard it's important to replenish those lost electrolytes. That's why they offer Gatorade during those long races.

I tried Gatorade once but it instantly made my stomach nauseous. I've tried the effervescent tablets that you put in water but they taste like cold/flu medicine to me. It was very hard to get them down.

Then the folks at Zipfizz contacted me and wanted to know if I'd like to try their product. Heck, yeah! Not only did they promise it would taste good but it only had 10 calories and 2g carbs and 0 sugar. Exactly what I needed!

I got a cute package in the mail that included my water bottle and a sample of each of their flavors.

Berry, citrus, orange soda, pink lemonade, and grape.

The first time I went for a sweaty run I mixed up the orange soda. I figured I'd use that one the first because that's typically my least favorite and I wanted to get it out of the way.

It mixed up very easily. All you do is dump the whole tube into 16-20 oz of water. And the tube is small enough that you could carry it in your pocket.

I ran 3 miles in my neighborhood, stopped by the house for a drink, then continued on with another 3 miles. This stuff really does taste great. I was shocked. I expected something nasty but I really liked it!

After finishing up my run I cooled down and drank the other half of the mix. It never upset my stomach in the slightest which is very important.

Same held true with pink lemonade which turned out to be one of my favorites. That and the berry flavor! They're so good that I asked my son to try them and he even liked it. It's hard to believe these are 0 sugar. What are they sweetened with? Sucralose. Think Splenda.

I am impressed with Zipfizz for the flavor and for the nutritional profile. Not only does it have 30x the electrolytes as "the leading sports drink" but it also tastes good, is low carb, zero sugar and only 10 calories per tube. It's portable so that's a plus. And each one of these has a little caffeine and their "proprietary mix" for a little boost of energy.

I was thinking about how this would work out in a race situation. I have a half marathon coming up. I hate fuel belts and the handheld water bottle on long runs. Sometimes they're a necessity, I understand, but I just don't like carrying them.

So I'd probably stash a couple of these in my SpiBelt and then add a bit of a tube into a cup of water at a water station, swirl it around and drink it back.

I loveZipfizz and was a little sad when my samples were used. I'm sure I'll be buying more of them.

Thank you for the chance to review your product, Zipfizz. It was exactly what I was looking for!

**Note: For any laws that I don't know about or understand and anyone who cares about those laws, I received these products from Zipfizz to try for free but I am an opinionated person and all of the above is my own opinion. It's not like they told me what to say because I don't play like that. I just got some free stuff and happened to really, really like it.

7 comments:

It looks a bit light in the sodium side (http://zipfizz.com/pdf/powdercomparison.pdf - 60mg), but really good in Potassium (900 mg). That would be my concern if this was the only thing I would use race day. Did you have to carry the tube with you or was there an inner plastic wrapper (not as bulky since I would have to carry like 3 of them on marathon day)? Thanks for the review!

So you are right regarding the low sodium. It is lower than any of the other products I have. But it sure tastes a lot better! I can't stomach those effervescent tablets. Like Alka seltzer to me. Bleck!

This weekend I'll be trying out Enduroltyes. They're just capsules that you wash back with some water. Would make it a lot easier! I can just carry a few in my spibelt.

None of those drinks for me either - and Gatorade even makes me nauseous when it's watered down. It's actually the heavy concentration of sugar that causes that, did you know that? Of course for really long run you need to refuel energy as well as electrolytes which is why some people use the Gatorade and Gu. I just eat a banana or pretzels for that and use something like this product to replace electrolytes.

I've never heard of Zipfizz - love the cute packaging they sent you! I don't think there's the one perfect drink, unfortunately - with the way I sweat, I might use Zipfizz and pop some salt capsules on a really long run.